Tomorrow is the New Year's Day, but the weather is hot, and the bright sun hangs in the sky, drying the cool air blowing from the seaside without a trace. The people who work are all dressed in short clothes, which makes Shi Quanbin, who came from the Central Plains, have an illusion that it is summer.

The two earthen walls that stretched out from Nam Langju Castle were knee-high and stretched all the way to the top of the valley. The width of the wall is about the same as the wall, enough for a ride on it.

Shi Quanbin and Xu Ping walked on this earthen wall, and said: "I have seen this earthen wall when I came, and I didn't care about it at first, but when I got closer, I realized that it was so wide. Yun Xing, you are going to build two city walls! In that case, why don't you build a pass at the mouth of the valley? It's narrow, and like this, it's enough to build a Xiongguan, and it's not afraid of any Jiaozhi army. ”

Xu Ping said: "What the cabinet chief said is also reasonable, but it is better to build it later." The valley mouth is not more than a mile wide, and if the pass is built, I can only arrange more than 500 people on the city. But now in Langzhou, there are nearly 20,000 troops of my Great Song Dynasty, if the Jiaozhi people come, they can't have more than 20,000 soldiers and horses watching behind, and they all rely on five or six hundred people to fight with the Jiaozhi people. As it is now, stretching the city wall, I can arrange nearly 10,000 horses, it is reasonable. ”

Shi Quanbin couldn't figure it out, so he had to stop talking and slowly move forward, watching as he walked.

Xu Ping's thinking is different from most people in this era, he not only has to think about fighting, but also about the efficiency of the use of manpower and material resources. If he relied on Xiongguan and only a few hundred people fought on the front line, then what was the use of him gathering tens of thousands of people here? Only by lengthening the front line and allowing more people to stand on the front line will there be no waste of manpower. That's why these two walls were built. We need to get more people involved on the battlefield.

"What kind of formation is this?" Shi Quanbin couldn't help but ask.

"Pocket array! It doesn't matter how many people come. It's all in one pocket! ”

"Pocket array? Haven't heard of it! Shi Quanbin smiled and shook his head.

Of course I haven't heard of it. Because this formation is actually not very suitable for cold weapon warfare, but in the era of guns and cannons, it is one of the classic defensive formations.

"Official, cabinet chief, I would like to give you an early year!"

Sun Qilang rushed up from the wall under construction and saluted Xu Ping and Shi Quanbin.

Shi Quanbin smiled: "I don't have any money for you!" ”

Everyone laughed together.

Sun Qilang said to Xu Ping: "Official, what do you think of the wall here?" Can it still be used? ”

This section was built first by Xu Ping's instructions to test various functions. to serve as a model for other places.

Xu Ping looked at it, the wall was rammed, and it was very strong. The top is five steps wide, the bottom is ten steps wide, nearly three feet high, and the slope towards the valley is smooth like a realm, rammed hard and flat.

Xu Ping said to Sun Qilang: "You go down, run up again and I'll take a look." ”

Sun Qilang responded to the promise, ran to the wall like a fly, looked up at Xu Ping and said, "Official." I'm coming up! ”

After saying that, he ran all the way to the top of the wall.

Watch Sun Qilang run halfway. Xu Ping shouted: "Stop there!" ”

Sun Qilang was instructed and stopped his body stiffly. The wall is smooth and steep, where can he stop? It took three or five steps backwards in a row before he could barely stand still.

Xu Ping said again: "Okay, just walk up slowly from where you are standing!" Stop, go slowly! ”

Sun Qilang held his breath and gently lifted his left leg up. As soon as the leg was raised, the body could not stand, and it took two or three steps backwards, almost lying on the wall.

Raising his head to the top, Sun Qilang shouted: "Official, if you walk slowly, you can't stand up!" ”

Xu Ping smiled: "You can go up when you run, and you must be able to go up when you walk, think of a way!" ”

Sun Qilang squatted on the wall and thought for a while, then stood up again, raised his left leg suddenly, and quickly fell forward, trying to get firm, and then raised his right leg again.

In this way, step by step, walking carefully, Sun Qilang spent more than a stick of incense before he walked on the wall again, and said to Xu Ping: "Official, it's not good to come up if this wall is slow!" ”

"That's right, I don't believe that the Cochin soldiers can come up in a rain of arrows and rolling logs. In this way, the rest of the world will be repaired in the same way! ”

Shi Quanbin watched the excitement from the side and asked Xu Ping: "Since you are afraid that the Jiaozhi people will rush to the wall, why don't you just build it like a city wall, straight up and down?" That's it, unless they can fly, they can't go up the wall. ”

Xu Ping said: "The cabinet chief is reasonable, but there are a few items that are straight and not oblique. First, if it is straight up and down, so high, the people on the wall cannot see the root of the wall, and if the enemy army moves under the wall, it will be difficult to defend against it. Second, the rolling log can only go down the wall and has little effect. The third, the sloping wall, has a wide bottom, which is much more solid than a straight wall, and is also easy to build. The pavilion is long, so it is better to have a sloping wall. ”

Shi Quanbin also said casually, but he didn't understand it when he really talked about it, and after listening to Xu Ping's words, it seemed to make sense, so he didn't say anything anymore.

The earliest city wall was built straight up and down, which corresponded to the lack of means to defend and siege the city, and with the accumulation of experience and the increase of means, in fact, people of insight have found that the sloped wall is more effective. At the turn of the Song Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, the master of defending the city made the "Record of Defending the City", which systematically proposed that the city wall should not be too high, should be built into an inclined plane rather than vertical, and the city wall should not have a right angle.

Xu Ping didn't know any of this, but he knew that for long-range weapons, the beveled city wall was more effective. It lengthens the distance of the enemy's siege, increases the range of attacks on the besiegers, reduces the dead angle on the wall, and is also conducive to the arrangement of city defense equipment, and the benefits are too many to say. And the disadvantage, in addition to the psychological feeling that it is easy to attack, there are almost no substantive shortcomings.

That's why, in the age of hot weapons, hillsides are a nightmare for attackers, but cliffs aren't. The defender chooses the battlefield, the first choice is the hillside, and the cliff is of little value.

Follow the earthen wall until you reach the mouth of the valley, and the wall is built all the way to the top of the mountain.

Shi Quanbin followed Xu Ping to climb the hill next to the valley mouth, and found that there were also a large number of people here who were repairing the slope of the mountain, only to know that Xu Ping had cultivated the entire side facing the attacker like this.

The progress of the mountain repair was a little faster, and by this time it was almost complete, and the people were arranging defensive equipment on the top of the mountain, and installing rolling logs in groups.

Shi Quanbin couldn't see why, just stood on the mountain and looked at Jiaozhi in the south. Out of this valley, the road between the hills widens, and there are no more dangers. Taking advantage of today's sunny weather, you can see the village of Cochin in the distance.

Sang Yi, who was commanding on the mountain, saw the two of them go up the mountain, came over to greet him, and said to Xu Ping: "You came just in time, I got the news here, Jiaozhi has been preparing to send troops from the bank of the Fuliang River." The main force of 10,000 Jiaozhi, plus the native soldiers of the nearby states, totaled 17,800 people, falsely claiming that 80,000 were coming to attack Langzhou. It is expected to arrive in half a month, and we have to hurry up here! ”

(There's another chapter in the evening.) (To be continued.) )